The 3 Biggest Security Gaps I See in Mid-Size Australian Businesses

In this blog post The 3 Biggest Security Gaps I See in Mid-Size Australian Businesses we will cover the most common (and fixable) security holes we see in organisations with 50–500 staff—especially those running Microsoft 365 and Azure—and what to do about them.

If you’re a CIO, IT manager, CTO, or ops leader, this will feel familiar. You’re not ignoring security—you’re juggling budgets, projects, vendor noise, and a business that just needs things to work.

The uncomfortable truth is that most security incidents we deal with don’t start with a “sophisticated hack”. They start with everyday gaps: a login policy that doesn’t match how people actually work, devices that aren’t consistently managed, and cloud settings that drift over time.

CloudProInc is a Melbourne-based Microsoft Partner and Wiz Security Integrator. We’ve spent 20+ years in enterprise IT, and what follows is the practical, real-world version—no scare tactics, no buzzwords.

High-level first what most modern attacks actually exploit

Most mid-size Australian businesses now run on cloud services like Microsoft 365 (email, Teams, SharePoint) and Azure (servers, apps, data). That’s great for flexibility, but it changes how security works.

Instead of “someone breaks into the office server room”, the common pattern is “someone signs in as a user”. Once an attacker has a valid login, they can move surprisingly far—especially if your policies don’t consistently check who’s signing in, from where, and on what device.

The main technology behind this post identity device and cloud visibility

To make sense of the gaps below, it helps to understand three building blocks of modern Microsoft security in plain English.

• Identity security (Microsoft Entra ID) is how Microsoft 365 and Azure decide “who is this person?” and “should we let them in?”. It’s your new front door.
• Device management (Microsoft Intune) manages and secures all your company devices (laptops, phones, tablets). It checks basics like encryption, passwords, patch levels, and whether a device is compliant.
• Cloud security visibility (Wiz and Microsoft Defender) helps you see risky cloud settings and risky behaviour. Wiz focuses heavily on cloud configuration risk (what’s exposed, what’s connected, what’s reachable). Microsoft Defender focuses heavily on threat detection across identities, devices, email, and endpoints.

When these three are set up well, you get a simple business outcome: fewer breaches, faster recovery, and less time spent firefighting.

Gap 1 weak identity controls and inconsistent MFA rules

This is the big one. Many mid-size businesses believe they have multi-factor authentication (MFA) “turned on”, but in practice it’s patchy.

MFA is the extra step after a password (like an app approval or code). In plain English, it stops a stolen password from being enough to get in.

What it looks like in the real world

• MFA is enabled for “admins” but not for everyone else.
• Legacy sign-in methods still exist (older email protocols) that don’t prompt for MFA.
• Some apps are covered by sign-in rules, others aren’t.
• One exception was created “temporarily” for a director, a finance mailbox, or an integration—and it never got removed.

Why it matters to the business

Once one account is taken over (often via a fake login page), attackers go after what makes money move: invoices, supplier bank details, payroll, and executive communications.

That’s not an “IT inconvenience”. That’s fraud risk, reputational damage, and a potential Notifiable Data Breach reporting obligation under Australian privacy rules if personal information is involved.

Practical steps we recommend

• Make MFA and strong sign-in rules consistent across all users, not just admins.
• Use Conditional Access (a Microsoft Entra feature that applies “if this, then require that” rules) to require MFA and block risky sign-ins. In plain English: you can say “if you’re outside Australia” or “if it’s a new device”, then require extra verification.
• Reduce exceptions and replace them with safer alternatives (like service accounts with tight permissions, or modern app authentication).
• Protect privileged accounts (global admins, Azure admins) with stricter rules and dedicated admin identities.

Business outcome: dramatically lower account takeover risk, fewer successful phishing incidents, and less chance of invoice fraud.

Gap 2 unmanaged devices and “shadow IT” endpoints

If identity is the front door, unmanaged devices are the broken side window.

In many organisations, the reality is messy. Staff bring older laptops, contractors use personal devices, and not every machine is built and patched the same way. Even in businesses with a good IT provider, it’s common to find a device fleet that’s only partially controlled.

What it looks like in the real world

• Some devices are managed by Intune (which manages and secures all your company devices), others aren’t.
• BitLocker (Windows disk encryption) is inconsistent, so a lost laptop becomes a data breach.
• Windows update and third-party patching isn’t enforced, so known vulnerabilities linger.
• Local admin rights are handed out because “it’s faster”, and then malware has an easier path.
• People access Microsoft 365 data from devices that have no baseline security controls.

Why it matters to the business

Unmanaged devices create two expensive outcomes:

• Higher breach likelihood (ransomware loves unpatched endpoints).
• Higher support costs (IT time gets eaten by one-off fixes and weird edge cases).

Practical steps we recommend

• Standardise device onboarding so every laptop is enrolled into Intune from day one.
• Require device compliance for access to company data (e.g., “you can’t download SharePoint files unless your device meets security standards”).
• Set a minimum baseline: encryption on, firewall on, strong passwords, auto-lock, supported OS versions, and patch levels.
• Reduce local admin access and use safer elevation approaches for developers and power users.

Business outcome: fewer ransomware entry points, less downtime, and predictable support effort as you scale.

Gap 3 cloud misconfigurations and lack of continuous visibility

This is the one many mid-size businesses miss because it’s not obvious day-to-day.

Cloud environments change constantly. A new storage location is created for a project. A developer opens access “just for testing”. A third-party tool is connected with broad permissions. Six months later, nobody remembers it exists.

That’s how cloud risk builds quietly.

What it looks like in the real world

• Storage or services accidentally exposed to the internet.
• Over-permissioned identities (accounts or apps that have more access than they need).
• Security settings that were good once, but drifted as new workloads were deployed.
• No clear view of “what is reachable from what” (attack paths), so teams fix low-risk issues and miss the dangerous ones.

Why it matters to the business

Misconfiguration is one of the most common causes of cloud security incidents because attackers don’t need to “break in” if something is accidentally left open.

And when something goes wrong in cloud, the blast radius can be large: sensitive data exposure, operational disruption, and compliance headaches—especially if you’re working toward Essential 8 (the Australian government’s cybersecurity framework that many organisations are now required to follow).

Practical steps we recommend

• Get continuous cloud posture visibility with a tool like Wiz (which maps your cloud risks in context) alongside Microsoft Defender (which detects suspicious activity across identities, email, and devices).
• Prioritise what’s actually dangerous (public exposure + sensitive data + high permissions) instead of chasing hundreds of low-impact alerts.
• Put ownership on fixes (who is responsible for the resource, by when, and what “done” looks like).
• Review third-party app access regularly so old integrations don’t quietly keep broad permissions.

Business outcome: fewer surprise exposures, faster audits, and less time wasted arguing about what to fix first.

A quick scenario we see often

A 180-person professional services firm came to us after a near-miss: a staff member’s Microsoft 365 account was compromised, and the attacker started sending realistic invoice-change emails to clients.

They had “MFA enabled”, but not consistently. Some sign-ins weren’t being challenged the way they expected. Their device fleet was mixed—some laptops were managed, others were effectively unmanaged. In Azure, they had a handful of cloud resources that had been created for testing and never reviewed.

We helped them tighten Conditional Access rules (plain English: consistent sign-in rules), bring every endpoint under Intune management, and implement continuous cloud risk visibility so misconfigurations didn’t sit unnoticed.

The biggest win wasn’t a fancy dashboard. It was confidence. The IT team could finally say, “Yes, we know who can access what, from which devices, and we have a plan if something looks suspicious.”

How this maps to Essential 8 without making it painful

Essential 8 is often treated like a compliance checkbox. In reality, it’s a practical roadmap for reducing the most common attacks.

The three gaps above directly impact your ability to meet Essential 8 maturity expectations, because they touch identity, patching, application control, and limiting administrative privileges. You don’t need perfection on day one, but you do need a plan and measurable progress.

Simple self-check questions for this week

• Do we have any user or service accounts that can bypass MFA “temporarily”?
• Can staff access Microsoft 365 data from devices we don’t manage?
• If we spun up a new Azure resource today, would we notice if it was exposed to the internet?
• Do we know our current Essential 8 maturity level, or are we guessing?

Wrap-up

The biggest security improvements for mid-size Australian businesses usually aren’t exotic. They’re the basics done consistently: strong sign-in controls, managed devices, and continuous cloud visibility.

If you’re not sure whether your current setup is costing you more than it should—or whether your IT provider has left gaps you can’t see—CloudProInc is happy to take a look and give you a straight answer. No pressure, no jargon, and no strings attached.